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Talking it over: A lean hunt

Marcia and I usually do mostly posting and flushing of the deer. We are not normally the shooters. This year we decided to do something a little different and do some walking on our own.

Thursday evening we left our husbands and fellow hunters to walk a dredge ditch. The men were pretty skeptical about our plan but told us to basically go for it if we wanted to do all that walking, they were just going to stay put and go to their stands later. I dropped her off at one end of the ditch and went to walk a fence line that ran up to it. I was about half-way down the line when I heard a single shot. Sure enough she had spotted a couple deer in the ditch and with one shot got one.

The remaining deer headed out, keeping eyes on me, and I was not able to get a shot off. My son and son-in-law ended up helping us take care of the deer and try to track down the ones that got away but to no avail. It was fun to call the others in our party and basically say "I told you so."

This was the most exciting part of the season. Friday, Saturday and Sunday were cold, wet, foggy and deerless no matter how many things we walked. There were not too many new stories to share around the table at night so we had to revert to the old stories and in some cases dressed them up a bit to make them more entertaining.

Even though it was cold, wet and deerless, we had a lot to eat, drink and talk about. It was a great hunt and, given the fact that we are all getting a little older, simply fun when everyone was there and healthy. We ended up with two deer and will have a little meat to add to our freezers. The familiar deer that wander into our front yard remained hidden and safe and ventured out again when the season ended.

I just wish we could have gotten the ones that find my garden, rub down our small trees and stand in the middle of the road when we are traveling. No matter how pretty they are, just like in many other things, too many is not a good thing to have.